President Term(s) Major War or Crisis
George Washington 1789–1797 Whiskey Rebellion (1791–1794)
John Adams 1797–1801 Quasi-War with France (1798–1800)
Thomas Jefferson 1801–1809 First Barbary War (1801–1805), Embargo Act (1807)
James Madison 1809–1817 War of 1812 (1812–1815)
James Monroe 1817–1825 First Seminole War (1817–1818), Panic of 1819
John Quincy Adams 1825–1829 No major wars or crises
Andrew Jackson 1829–1837 Second Seminole War (1835–1842), Nullification Crisis
Martin Van Buren 1837–1841 Panic of 1837
William Henry Harrison 1841 No major events
John Tyler 1841–1845 Texas Annexation, First U.S.-China Treaty
James K. Polk 1845–1849 Mexican-American War (1846–1848)
Zachary Taylor 1849–1850 Slavery debate intensifies
Millard Fillmore 1850–1853 Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Act
Franklin Pierce 1853–1857 Bleeding Kansas
James Buchanan 1857–1861 Panic of 1857, Secession of Southern States
Abraham Lincoln 1861–1865 American Civil War (1861–1865)
Andrew Johnson 1865–1869 Reconstruction, Impeachment Trial (1868)
Ulysses S. Grant 1869–1877 Reconstruction, Panic of 1873
Rutherford B. Hayes 1877–1881 End of Reconstruction, Great Railroad Strike of 1877
James A. Garfield 1881 No major events
Chester A. Arthur 1881–1885 Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (1883)
Grover Cleveland 1885–1889,
1893–1897 Panic of 1893
Benjamin Harrison 1889–1893 Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), Wounded Knee Massacre
William McKinley 1897–1901 Spanish-American War (1898), Annexation of Philippines
Theodore Roosevelt 1901–1909 Panama Canal, Russo-Japanese War Mediation
William Howard Taft 1909–1913 U.S. involvement in Latin America, Dollar Diplomacy
Woodrow Wilson 1913–1921 World War I (1914–1918), Spanish Flu Pandemic (1918)
Warren G. Harding 1921–1923 Teapot Dome Scandal, post-WWI recession
Calvin Coolidge 1923–1929 Roaring Twenties economic boom
Herbert Hoover 1929–1933 Great Depression (1929)
Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933–1945 Great Depression, World War II (1939–1945)
Harry S. Truman 1945–1953 End of WWII, Cold War Begins, Korean War (1950–1953)
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953–1961 Cold War, Suez Crisis (1956), U-2 Incident (1960)
John F. Kennedy 1961–1963 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), Bay of Pigs (1961)
Lyndon B. Johnson 1963–1969 Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement
Richard Nixon 1969–1974 Vietnam War ends, Watergate Scandal (1974)
Gerald Ford 1974–1977 End of Vietnam War, Inflation Crisis
Jimmy Carter 1977–1981 Iran Hostage Crisis (1979), Energy Crisis
Ronald Reagan 1981–1989 Cold War ends, Grenada Invasion (1983), Iran-Contra
George H. W. Bush 1989–1993 Gulf War (1990–1991), Fall of the Soviet Union
Bill Clinton 1993–2001 Kosovo War (1999), Impeachment Trial
George W. Bush 2001–2009 9/11 Attacks (2001), War in Afghanistan (2001), Iraq War (2003)
Barack Obama 2009–2017 Great Recession Recovery, War in Iraq, Syria Civil War
Donald Trump 2017–2021 COVID-19 Pandemic, Impeachment Trials
Joe Biden 2021–Present COVID-19 Pandemic Continuation, Afghanistan Withdrawal
